'That He is Reviving This Hoax is a Little Bizarre'

When it comes to the hardcore kook left, perpetrating hoaxes isn't really bizarre. It's pretty much standard operating procedure. See Andrew Sullivan and his obsession with Sarah Palin's uterus for just one example. We've seen this drivel from the angry gay left for so long it's more to be pitied than anything. If it makes them feel any better to make up stories that the founding fathers were gay, then let them have at it. Few believe this crap and it's just kind of sad anyone gives notice to their delusions.

Abraham Lincoln was not gay, no matter what playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer says -- according to Harold Holzer, who's written 35 books about our 16th president and the Civil War.

The subject came up in this week's New York magazine story about Kramer -- co-founder of Gay Men's Health Crisis and ACT UP -- and his 4,000-page manuscript, "The American People," which claims that George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Lewis and Clark and Lincoln were all homosexuals.

Kramer claimed that a diary and a stash of letters were found under the floorboards of a building where Lincoln had lived with his roommate and supposed lover, Joshua Speed.

But the article by Jesse Green noted, "Kramer isn't interested in proof, or facts." And Holzer, a historian who co-chaired this year's Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, told Page Six: "I had a private conversation with him [Kramer]. He admitted to me that he made the whole thing up. He said he made it up to raise consciousness."

Kramer evidently believes that Americans will be more supportive of gay rights if they think the Founding Fathers and other heroic historical figures were homosexuals.

"That he is reviving this hoax is a little bizarre," said Holzer, whose day job is p.r. for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "For half his life, Lincoln shared his bed with other guys. It was the custom. People didn't have so many beds."

Long Lost Lincoln

Check out the photo of President Abraham Lincoln from 1860 taken at the Illinois state capitol. It's eerie seeing such a quality photo taken nearly 150 years ago and before he became the 16th President of the United States.

Seated by a window in the Illinois state Capitol in 1860, a beardless Abraham Lincoln held still 25 seconds for a classic campaign portrait of the soon-to-be president. It was undoubtedly a personal favorite.

"That looks better and expresses me better than any I have ever seen," Lincoln said in a letter to photographer Alexander Hesler. "If it pleases the people, I am satisfied."

To mark the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth on Feb. 12, the long-lost positive transparency of this photograph (above) goes on display beginning tomorrow at the George Eastman House museum of photography in Rochester.

It was sent there for repair in December 2006 by a Midwestern collector of Lincoln materials who didn't realize he owned a national treasure. He has declined to be identified.

"This is the closest you will ever get to seeing Lincoln, short of putting your eyeballs on the man himself," said Grant Romer, the museum's director of photograph conservation.

In 1880, images of the slain Civil War leader were in high demand. Hesler's wet-plate collodion negative was used to create a high-definition, silver-gelatin interpositive - a new-technology format from which several thousand prints were generated.

In 1933, during shipment by parcel post to St. Louis, the original glass plate was accidentally broken and ended up as a shattered artifact in the Smithsonian Institution's vault. The 8-by-10-inch clone - evidently in the same package and similarly damaged - disappeared until its recent resurrection.

The three-quarter profile taken on June 3, 1860 is striking in its clarity and tonal range.

Having co-opted nearly all things Lincoln, expect Barack Obama to sit down soon for a replica of this photo.

Obama Taking Lincoln Comparisons to Absurd Extreme

Considering his incoming administration appears to be Clinton III, I guess pretending he's like Lincoln might be a good sign considering Lincoln was a Republican.

But at some point the lame symbolism just goes a bit too far.

They're going to party like it's 1861!

In what will be a Lincoln-themed inauguration from top to bottom, Obama won't only follow in the footsteps of the former president - he'll also eat like him, it was announced yesterday.

Obama's jampacked Abe-apalooza moved into high gear with an announcement from the Congressional Inaugural Committee that it will hold a luncheon next Tuesday following the swearing-in ceremony that's modeled after foods Lincoln enjoyed.

The lunch menu is only the latest in a slew of references and tributes to Lincoln that will be folded into Obama's big day.

Part of the meal will even be served on replicas of the china picked out by First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln at the beginning of her husband's first term in office in 1861.

The appetizer will feature a seafood stew in puff pastry - including scallops, shrimp and lobster - in honor of Lincoln's love of seafood.

The main course of a "Brace of American Birds (pheasant and duck)" with sour-cherry chutney will be served with molasses sweet potatoes - a nod to the root vegetables and wild game that Honest Abe ate as a child in Indiana.

The Lincoln-fest luncheon at Statuary Hall, a chamber of the Capitol building, will serve some 200 guests, including members of the Supreme Court, the incoming Cabinet and congressional leaders.

"It's always good to model yourself after a great president," said Eric Foner, a professor of American history at Columbia University. "The proof will be in the pudding."

Ba dum bum.

One problem with all this is Lincoln wasn't a self-absorbed narcissist and liked to keep things simple.

Historians would probably also note the media didn't shamelessly slobber over Lincoln and have tingles running up their legs whenever he spoke, and Lincoln had much more substance behind his speeches.

Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the link.